


A Second to Breathe (Before I Can Let You In)

by Meatball42



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, I don't know which of those tags is correct, M/M, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Slow Romance, Ukrainian food, anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-18 03:25:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13673271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: When Tony Stark makes an unexpected proposition to Steve on the evening of the day they met, Steve isn’t ready to handle it. But time brings them back together, and maybe this time they’ll want the same thing.





	A Second to Breathe (Before I Can Let You In)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/gifts).
  * Inspired by [a time for romance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123393) by [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan). 



> A remix of navaan’s sweet story A Time for Romance, transposed from Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes to the MCU along the axis of Steve and Tony having different dating criteria, and different ways of going about such.
> 
> Title is partially taken from Adam Lambert's 'What Do You Want From Me,' which gives me so many feels, you don't even know.

 

It was 4am, nearly twelve hours after the Chitauri portal was closed. A haze hung over the city of New York, the hovering dust from crushed buildings, smoke from fires: a dark veil draped across her face, unmoved by wind.

Steve Rogers stood on the eighty-eighth floor of Stark Tower in a streamlined living room, looking out over a city he barely recognized. Even at this height, the flashing of emergency vehicles was visible. The Empire State Building had been lit up in pure white, a spire to the heavens proclaiming the endurance of the city. Rescue efforts were on-going. The lost would be mourned tomorrow, but tonight, the survivors would have a beacon.

No sirens breached the walls of Stark Tower, nor the sounds of the cranes that worked through the night to lift chunks of buildings away from pockets of trapped people. Steve had been among them until recently, putting his supernatural gifts to use saving people rather than fighting. Eventually, Barton had come and ordered him to hit the sack, with impressive command for a man who faded into the background when he tried.

So Steve had retreated to Stark Tower, where a huge selection of food had been sourced and spread out over a long metal and glass table. Barton didn’t make conversation while they ate, but afterwards he told Steve to get some rest. It reminded Steve, achingly, of the way his Commandos would look after each other, chain of command less important than making sure everyone made it through the night.

The past and the present- the _future_ \- were too loud and chaotic in Steve’s mind to let him sleep. Instead, he looked out at the brave new world, lit by a nearly full moon, and tried to imagine finding himself a place in its confusing and treacherous reaches.

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”

Steve spun around. Stark was standing back by the sofas, watching him with his arms crossed over his chest. It was a strangely defensive pose for someone Steve had only seen as brash and dominating, always pushy and bitingly sarcastic. Now, the other man looked small and tired, dressed in dark clothes as he approached Steve by the windows.

“We saved the world, Cap. Time to get your beauty sleep.”

“We won the battle,” Steve countered. “Don’t know that our work is done.”

“All the more reason to be ready when they come back.” Stark looked almost haunted as he gazed out over the city.

“You sound pretty certain that it’s not over.”

“There’s always a bigger fish,” Stark murmured absently.

Steve turned to look at the side of Stark’s face in confusion. “What?”

After another minute of staring, Stark seemed to come back from the contemplative place he’d gone. “You never know, Cap. Could be tomorrow, could be five years from now, but you can count on it: the Avengers will be needed again. The question is, where will you be when the call goes out?”

He stared at Steve in an almost challenging way, a return to the proud and confident man who had accused Nick Fury and faced down a god. But there was something solemn there, too, something patient and old, that cooled Steve’s instinctive reaction.

“I’ll come when I’m called,” he said quietly.

Stark nodded slightly. “We’ll be better as a team,” he said at the same volume. The way he turned toward Steve, he made a pocket between them, separate from the hollowness of the dark room behind them. He was magnetic. Steve couldn’t help but lean closer. “You should stay in New York. There’s work to do here, and… I think we would be good together.”

He took Steve’s forearm in one warm hand, the touch nearly gentle enough to be a caress.

It was several long moments before what was going on penetrated Steve’s brain. He blinked at Stark, looked down at the hand on his arm, back up at Stark.

“As partners,” Stark said, seemingly to clarify, but Steve didn’t understand any better. The look on Stark’s face was open, honest, but had the same steel in it as when he’d faced Steve down on the Helicarrier.

Steve felt simultaneously like he wanted to follow Stark anywhere, and like he wanted to run away.

“I-” he stuttered. He stepped back, breaking contact between them, and just like that they were two people standing in an empty room, nothing more.

Stark nodded like something had been decided, tucking his hands into his pockets. “There’s a room for you a few floors down, JARVIS will show you. If there’s anything you need, just say the word, he’ll get it for you. You can stay as long as you want.” He walked toward the elevator backwards as he gave his directions rapid-fire, leaving Steve no time to reply.

Before he left, though, he gave Steve one last searching look. “Get some sleep, Cap,” he said, decisive but gentle.

Steve nodded and the elevator doors closed.

He turned back to the view, but his head was once again swirling, thoughts scattered and impressions convoluted by the whirlwind of Stark’s appearance. He was shocked, confused, frustrated, and too damn tired to make sense of any of it. He followed in Stark’s footsteps, letting ‘Jarvis’ take him where he needed to go.

As he dropped onto a too-soft mattress and almost immediately drifted off, his last vague thought was on why Stark’s order to rest hit him much harder than Barton’s.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

From the moment Steve met Alexander Pierce at the start of this, his guard had been up. Even at Sam Wilson’s house, in Fury’s bunker, and in the hospital after the last of the physical fires were out, he was alert, waiting for a threat to appear in the corner of his eye. The tension didn’t abate til he and Natasha reached middle-of-nowhere, Western Pennsylvania, in an incognito pickup truck that rattled dangerously whenever Natasha shifted gears.

The truck was made in ‘86. Seventy years after Steve was born, and it was ready for retirement.

Steve let his head fall back against worn padding and closed his eyes.

When he opened them, they were parked on the side of a dirt road. Natasha had her feet tucked on the driver’s seat and she was looking out at the trees, munching on a burrito. The burrito was the reason they weren’t heading straight to New York; she’d insisted on taking ‘the scenic route’ in order to visit ‘a Mexican road stand worth dying for.’

Steve felt a moment of cynicism wash over him, remembering how many of their colleagues at SHIELD had died over the last few days. But Natasha turned her x-ray gaze on him, still innocently chewing, and a different kind of dread came upon him.

She chewed slowly, building tension. Steve had figured out it was better to let her set whatever stage she wanted to set, so he waited, nervously.

Finally, she swallowed. “You don’t seem that excited to be going back to New York.”

“I moved to D.C. for a reason,” Steve huffed. “I’m sure you saw it in my file.”

“Yeah, but that can’t be the whole story,” Natasha said, shrugging loosely as she casually admitted to snooping where she wasn’t meant to be. Steve rolled his eyes, but his frown softened into something approaching a smile.

Natasha smiled back. “So what is it then?” She reached over and poked him on his bicep, near his elbow. Steve knew she was manipulating him, but he’d also accepted her warning that manipulation came with the package. It reminded him of Bucky’s little sisters, back in the day, buttering up their ma and pa for treats.

But Natasha wanted something a bit more complicated than a violet candy. “I’m not sure about using Stark Tower as a base.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Natasha pointed out. “And we don’t have a lot of options right now. We kinda sunk our best bet.”

“I know.” Steve shook his head. “But…”

“Does this have anything to do with why you didn’t come to Stark’s ‘I saved the President and didn’t die horribly’ New Year’s party?”

Steve bit his lips, thinking. He’d never mentioned to anyone what had passed between him and Stark, and their previous disagreements on the Helicarrier were widely-known enough that no one thought his avoidance of the man was suspicious. And after spending so long intermittently thinking about that strange encounter in the moonlight, and trying _not_ to think about it, he didn’t know how to explain it.

Natasha let her legs fall into the footwell to face Steve fully, a serious frown creasing the skin between her eyebrows. “I like to think I’m a good judge of character, but I never saw Hydra coming,” she confessed. “So if you’ve got a reason not to trust Stark- I’m listening.”

“No, no!” Steve assured her immediately. “Nothing like that. I… I think he hit on me.”

Natasha laughed, loud in the cab of the truck even with the windows open. Steve had never heard anything like that from her, only contained laughter. Her eyes crinkled up fetchingly, and Steve blushed and looked away.

“You ‘think’ he hit on you?” Natasha repeated, grinning widely.

“I couldn’t tell!” Steve defended, blush deepening. “I never had much of anyone showing interest, and- he made it sound like a business proposal.”

“That’s adorable,” Natasha cooed. Steve gave her a look. “Tony’s real good at one thing. And when he tries to step outside that, he falls on his face.” She laughed again, relaxed in the driver’s seat.

“That’s not the impression I got,” Steve grumbled.

“That’s cause he doesn’t usually step outside his comfort zone.” Natasha sobered up, tilting her head at Steve’s truculent expression. “Look, if he tries again, just tell him you’re not interested. Otherwise- he’s our best shot at cleaning up our mess.”

Steve nodded reluctantly. After everything, he wasn’t about to waste the best- the only- resources they had to combat Hydra and locate Bucky, just because he was uncomfortable.

“And I know a few girls around New York who-”

“Romanov,” Steve interrupted. “Let it go.”

She grinned, and turned the engine over.

None of Steve’s fears about New York- about Stark- came to anything. Stark wasn’t even at the Tower when they arrived, and only crossed paths with them for a few minutes- laying eyes on, he called it- before he was flying down to D.C. to help with the clean-up efforts. What was left of loyal SHIELD agents around the globe needed assistance, and he and Maria Hill were spearheading that side, while Steve, Natasha, and JARVIS were to comb through the files Natasha had released online for any information on Hydra.

Steve wanted to bristle at the way Stark rattled off marching orders, but Natasha was nodding along, and this was much more her kind of fight than Steve’s, so he kept his mouth shut. He managed to say something intelligent when Tony turned those surprisingly warm brown eyes on him and said sincerely how glad he was that Steve had survived the river. But no amount of poise was enough to save him from Natasha, who waggled her eyebrows at him the moment Tony swept out of the room.

The next few weeks were difficult. Although Steve had the intelligence to read and understand large amounts of files and retain information for cross-referencing, he didn’t have the temperament to sit pretty for days on end, while others were in the field- especially as every new shred of information about Hydra’s occupation of SHIELD dug under his skin with every passing second. Natasha did her best to keep his mood up, sparring with him, teasing him, ordering in new foods from around the city, but she eventually gave up.

Of course, giving up for Natasha meant flying Sam up from D.C. and kicking them out of the Tower for the day.

It wasn’t a magic cure, but Sam was good for Steve. He was a good listener because he understood Steve’s motivations better than Natasha, but more than that, he let Steve know when he was wallowing and encouraged him to focus on things he could _do_.

When they returned in the evening, Steve with a smile on his face, Natasha ordered Sam a flower bouquet made out of cookies. They shared them as they had a no-work-talk movie night.

After Sam went back to D.C., Clint showed up and stole Natasha away for a mission, projected to last several weeks. Steve kept working on the Hydra files, and kept chatting with Sam. He was getting pretty good at Skype, and talking to Sam filled up part of a hole he’d had since he got out of the ice, one that only Natasha had touched before. He did miss her, but their friendship was formed in battle and was less firm outside of work. Sam was the friend he’d been missing since the last time he saw his Commandos, and when they went out together on the occasional Bucky sighting, they fit together in a way Steve hadn’t felt since he’d had Bucky watching his back.

Despite everything that had gone wrong- despite everything that was still going wrong- Steve was finally starting to feel at home in the new millennium, at home in New York, and Stark Tower. When Bruce returned, when Thor touched down with important news, when Natasha and Clint came back from their mission, the sense that he was where he was meant to be only got stronger.

And then Tony came back.

It wasn’t like the first time.

Then, they’d been thrown together, a handful of individuals- not all soldiers, not even all fighters- with a mission that should have been beyond their abilities. Bruce had called them a chemical mixture that created chaos, and his prediction was only precluded by the alien invasion that overshadowed their differences.

Now- they were starting to feel like a team.

Steve woke up every morning in his luxury suite on the fiftieth floor, went for a run in Central Park, then returned to make breakfast for himself and the two former SHIELD agents. Thor and Tony tended to sleep in, and Bruce’s sleep schedule varied depending on his projects. They all did their own work in the mornings, but gathered together after lunch to discuss plans of actions against the network of Hydra cells that Steve, JARVIS, and Natasha and Clint had pieced together. Afterwards, they ate dinner as a group two or three times a week, and on other nights usually a few who weren’t busy would spend time together. Good food, good company, and long nights filled with laughter and teasing became the norm.

Far from Steve’s belief that close quarters would lead to more explosions- metaphorical or literal- the Avengers became closer than ever. Perhaps it was coming back together with people you could be sure would have your backs, after everything each of them had been through while apart. Perhaps it was the shared mission, long-term, against an enemy with no gray areas. Or maybe they actually were suitable for each other- a chemical mixture that could create harmony, or at least controlled, directed chaos. The latter was to be found often in their violent, explosive, and extremely fun team training- and made Steve feel ever more secure in his position and his teammates.

It was the best winter Steve could remember, even counting his life before the war. And Tony was the best part of it.

When Tony had first returned to the Tower from his stint in D.C. (and Los Angeles, London, Geneva, Brussels, etc.), Steve hadn’t even had the opportunity to try and avoid him. That same day, Natasha had broken a code on a secret Hydra transmission that gave them access to a new stream of intelligence, and the strategy planning had begun immediately. At that meeting, with all the Avengers present, Steve had first witnessed Tony’s lightning-fast intellect outside of battle and casual insults.

Natasha, Tony, Clint, and Maria Hill had taken control of the long view, establishing priority targets based on the latest information and their knowledge of a broad amount of intelligence concerning the recent history of Hydra’s movements. Steve himself had experience and intuition in determining what the Nazi organization’s next moves tended to be, but he didn’t have the international knowledge base that the SHIELD agents did, or Tony’s ability to connect disparate piece of data to form cohesive solutions. Steve, along with Bruce and Thor, had watched like spectators at a tennis match as the four carved a path through Hydra’s defenses.

After that, it was Steve’s turn to brief the team on tactics that Hydra would be vulnerable to- a combination of his expertise back in the war, and the training he’d gone through on SHIELD’s dime over the last year. As he laid out his plans, Natasha or Clint would sometimes throw in their two cents, but it was Tony who dogged him to explain his placements, questioned him with new variables, and forced him to take a broader view of the field, the kind Tony would get from above.

Steve’s instincts said to bristle at the challenge, but there was nothing personal about Tony’s questions. He might have been calling Steve out for every slight loophole in the strategy, but the fact that he found loopholes in Steve’s strategy was a rare feat. Clint even snapped his fingers in surprise, once. Steve found himself grinning by the end of the discussion, and the take-down of the base went off without a hitch.

The pattern continued. Tony wasn’t always in New York, or available even when he was, but he and Steve started meeting fairly often to go over progress made by the Avengers on various fronts. As the leader and the money behind the team, they had a lot to talk about, regarding not only Hydra, but the direction the Avengers should go in as a group free of SHIELD and what it had become. They got along far better than Steve had feared, now that they had a shared goal, friends in common, and the beginnings of a warm rapport- maybe even a friendship.

It all came to a head one night in a Ukrainian hole-in-the-wall Clint dragged Steve and Thor to, small enough that the three of them barely fit at the small table and Thor and Steve were both brushing walls. Thor had brought along a jug of Asgardian mead, and in between eating the kitchen out of food, they polished it off.

“Tony thinks we’ll be able to build underground,” Steve was explaining the plans for the new Avengers headquarters. Thor nodded along while humming to the music coming from the ceiling, and Clint had his chin resting heavily on his palm, eyes drooping shut. “He says he’s got this- system, an obstacle course type of thing, except it- it’s a computer, and it knows you, and it sets itself up to train you! Isn’t that-” _hic_ “-incredible?”

“Verily!” Thor announced loudly.

“He’s so brilliant,” Steve murmured, taking another sip of his spiked egg cream. “Did I tell you about the- the robots, that’ll fly bystanders out of harm’s way?”

Clint rolled his eyes, and tilted a few inches to the left. “I just asked how your day was,” he drawled. “Not for a run-down of Stark’s most attractive qualities.”

Steve blinked several times. His eyes were feeling dry. “Do you think he’s attractive?”

“Do I think- Steve.” Clint snapped his fingers in front of Steve’s face, which was rude, but also he missed Steve’s face and ended up nearly smacking Thor, who just huffed and stuffed another pierogi into his mouth. “Steeeeeve.”

“What?”

“ _Oh, Tony!_ ” Clint imitated Steve badly, listing heavily to the side. “ _He’s sooooo smart. Did you see him talk around that news-caster person? Sooo clever. His ass looks so good in his catsuit._ Get a room,” Clint cackled.

“I never said anything about the flight suit!”

“Your face said it."

"Barton-"

"Steve and Tony, sitting in a tree-”

Steve threw a meatball at Clint, then had a delayed moment of panic about the sauce stain, before he remembered that t-shirts were a dime a dozen nowadays. And Clint was laughing harder anyhow.

Thor picked up a sausage like it was a baton and went to his feet. Steve and Clint both had to grab an arm to convince him not to throw it.

By the time Steve sobered up late that night, the conversation had floated back to him. Did he really sound like he had a crush when he talked about Tony? That was ridiculous. Tony was just a teammate. He’d have to watch the way he talked so no one would get the wrong impression again. It would be a bad idea to make it seem like there was fraternization among the team.

The next day Steve met Tony for a business lunch and Steve made some comment about the attendees of the last charity fundraiser they’d made an appearance at. Tony smiled in response- a wide, genuine smile that crinkled the skin around his eyes and made him glow like sunlight. Steve’s breath caught in his throat and he completely forgot his train of thought. He stared at Tony in shock, feeling his cheeks heat up from the force of his epiphany: if he could lead the Avengers and have Tony smile at him like that for the rest of his life, he would die a happy man.

Maybe Clint was onto something after all.

Steve spent a lot of time over the next few weeks thinking about his unexpected friendship with Tony, and the unexpected way he felt warm inside when Tony was around, energized when Tony disagreed with him, stronger than ever when Tony was with him on the battlefield, lonely when Tony went away even if he was with the others. He thought about the way he’d misjudged Tony at the start, and how he knew him better now. He thought about the time Tony came up to him in a dark, empty room and said he thought they’d be good together.

He spent a lot of time wondering what would’ve happened if he hadn’t pulled away.

(A lot of time.)

Steve started acting a bit quieter when he and Tony were together, either for planning sessions or holding a poker tournament with Clint, Natasha and Sam when the latter visited. He could tell that Tony noticed, but Tony didn’t say anything. Steve thought about the way they were the first time they met, how that Tony would have taken any opportunity to needle Steve, how that Steve would have been suspicious at any sign of weakness from Tony. Years later, they knew where each others’ sharp edges were, knew when to back off, or press on.

Steve thought about where they started, where they were now, and where he’d like to go next.

One night, after they finished going over reports of Hydra activity, he and Tony ordered take-out and chatted over the background noise of the television. They slumped on the sofa, arguing just as much as they agreed, laughing half the time. Steve noticed once again how fulfilling it was, being with Tony, talking to him, even if they were just shooting the breeze. At a pause in the conversation, he looked over at Tony, and realized he’d had enough time to make his decision.

“The first night I stayed here,” he started, “you said you thought we’d be good together. You and I, I think.”

There were butterflies in his stomach, because- there was still a chance he had this wrong. Even though Clint called them lovebirds to Steve’s face, and Bruce always assumed the two of them would be spending the evening together if there wasn’t a group activity planned. Tony could have meant partners on the team, or… maybe Steve had missed his chance. Maybe Tony wouldn’t still want the man who took two years to catch up to him.

Tony put his plastic fork down slowly, looking at Steve with curiosity. “Yeah. I meant it.”

Steve had to look away from his calm gaze, digging into his carton of lo mein. “How did you know? We’d just met, and we did nothing but argue.”

“I’m a quick judge of character, Steve. I decide pretty much right when I meet someone if I’m going to like them.” Tony put his food down on the coffee table, turning toward Steve like he meant business. “Our styles didn’t mesh, yeah, you annoyed the hell out of me, but hey, I argue with Pepper all the time, too. And she and I are good friends, partners, just like I knew you and I would make good teammates.”

Steve swallowed. “We are. Good teammates. And friends.” His chest tightened.

“Yeah,” Tony said sincerely. “We are.”

“But…” Steve pressed, head rushing just a bit with nerves. “What if I thought we could… also be good…” He petered off, unsure how to phrase it. He glanced over nervously.

A grin was growing on Tony’s face. “Are you trying to ask me out, Rogers?” he teased.

Everything snapped into place. Just like how he knew what Tony would do when they fought together, Steve knew what Tony’s answer was going be. “And if I am?”

The grin softened, turning into that smile that crinkled Tony’s eyes. “Then I’d have to revise my conclusion,” he said quietly. “I think we can be a lot more than good teammates.”

“I might need some time to test that conclusion,” Steve said, leaning forward on the couch.

Tony moved over to meet him. “You can have all the time you want,” he said, before closing the last few inches between them.


End file.
